Quasi-isentropic compression of liquid argon up to 500 GPa

The compressibility of liquid argon up to pressures ∼500 GPa has been investigated experimentally. The argon was compressed by a cylindrical shell accelerated by the detonation products of an explosive. The density was recorded by the gamma-graphic method and the pressure was determined from the gas-dynamic calculations. Comparing the experimental and computational results showed that the compression process studied is isentropic to a quite high degree. The compression of liquid argon up to a density of 7.3 g/cm3 did not show any clear anomalies associated with a structural transition or metallization.